Styria & co: searching for the Milky Way in Austria’s darkest skies

Gazing at the stars without the ‘filters’ of light pollution: this is an increasingly popular pastime during the summer holidays, and Austria still boasts vast areas where darkness remains an integral part of the landscape, particularly in the less densely populated Alpine regions. The go-to destination for stargazers is the Sternenpark Attersee-Traunsee in Upper Austria: in 2021, it was awarded International Dark Sky Park certification following a study on sky quality and artificial lighting. A major project linked to stargazing tourism involves 22 municipalities in Upper Austria, Lower Austria and Styria working together to create the country’s largest natural night-time area, which includes the Kalkalpen and Gesäuse National Parks and the Eisenwurzen, Ötscher-Tormäuer and Dürrenstein-Lassingtal Nature Parks. To view the starry sky at high altitude, you can head to the Kaunertal in Tyrol, where the innermost part of the valley is among the darkest areas in the whole country: follow the scenic glacier road to reach an altitude of 2,000 metres to observe the constellations and take part in guided excursions led by experts. The icing on the cake? Staying at the Gepatschhaus, an alpine refuge opened in 1873, where, as night falls, the show begins simply by looking up.

http://www.sternenpark-attersee-traunsee.at/

https://www.gepatschhaus.at/en/gepatschhaus/the-gepatschhaus/